Last season, the Los Angeles Kings three top-scoring centres combined for 161 points. The three players the Edmonton Oilers plan to ice in those slots this season haven’t combined for that many over their entire careers. “Obviously there’s going to be some battle down the middle,” Oilers head coach Dallas Eakins said last Thursday. “We have two NHL centremen right now and I have no idea who the other ones will be; that will be for the players to decide.”
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Eakins is the latest to chime in on a depth chart that features only 2011 first-overall pick Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and checker Boyd Gordon as established NHL centres. He acknowledges a truth that has been evident for some time; that the Oilers are betting heavily on an unproven group to play significant minutes at a pivotal position. While it’s clear the organization realizes the state of the position, it doesn’t answer other related questions: Why is Edmonton rolling the dice on prospects to play major roles? And what are the odds that the Oilers can get a satisfactory level of performance from that group?
In answering the latter, it’s important first to identify exactly which jobs are open. Nugent-Hopkins is the team’s incumbent No. 1 pivot and will inherit the job by default once again in 2014-15, likely with Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle as linemates. This in itself is a gamble, as Nugent-Hopkins at this stage in his career isn’t ideally suited to match up against the best centres in the West, though he plays a two-way style and at just 21 years of age is certainly young enough to improve. On the other hand, this isn’t the first time the Oilers have banked on a highly picked centre to progress; last time it didn’t work out so well.
The situations aren’t exactly the same—and there are big chunks of the game that 5-on-5 scoring doesn’t capture—but it still has to be a little disturbing for Edmonton that Nugent-Hopkins’s offensive totals at even-strength are marching in lock-step with Gagner’s. Nugent-Hopkins’s predecessor as the Oilers’ great young centre hope, Gagner was dumped to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the off-season after failing to live up to the club’s expectations.
Edmonton’s other veteran pivot isn’t a question mark. Gordon took on the second-most severe zone starts in the entire NHL last season. He took faceoff after faceoff in his own end of the rink and did as well as could be expected at keeping the bleeding in check. While Nugent-Hopkins is likely to be Eakins’s primary weapon against top opponents, Gordon will be his workhorse in the defensive zone. Part of the reason the Oilers likely feel confident enough to roll unknowns at centre is that those tough assignments are already assigned. The other reason is that the three others penciled in for the NHL roster all of have some significant points in their favour.
Leon Draisaitl, the third-overall pick in June, is at the top of that list. Edmonton has been (in many cases justly) criticized for its willingness to rush young players, but in Draisaitl’s case pretty much any team would be expected to promote him to the majors right away. As the Edmonton Journal’s Bruce McCurdy notes, virtually every single forward in the same age and selection range the past six years has been bumped to the NHL immediately. If Draisaitl can translate as much of his junior scoring to the NHL as that group did on average, he’ll top 50 points as a rookie.
While youn Draisaitl is blessed with size, he is sometimes criticized for playing a “soft” game. Mark Arcobello is, in many respects, the opposite: He is tiny but surprisingly combative, was never drafted and graduated to the NHL last season at the age of 25. But for all their differences, what the two have in common are extremely encouraging indicators.
Arcobello scored at a 36-point pace in 2013-14, but that’s a misleading figure because he also got cast as the fourth-line centre for a spell, dragging around Luke Gazdic (claimed on waivers), Ryan Jones (unclaimed on waivers) and Jesse Joensuu (five points). Playing with even one skilled player on his line last season, he scored at a 50-point pace and was firmly in the black in scoring chances despite playing on a terrible team. And yet he was demoted to the AHL late in the season, where he ran up an astonishing 28 points in 15 games.
The fallback option if either of Draisaitl or Arcobello struggles is Anton Lander—a baffling prospect. Last season he established himself as an elite AHL centre, taking on the toughest matchups at even-strength and playing on both special-teams all while scoring at better than a point-per-game pace. As one would imagine, this resulted in numerous NHL cameos, but Lander couldn’t find the range on the larger stage. In 27 disappointing games he managed only a single assist.
Our quick consideration of that list underlines the fact that the Oilers are gambling, but not necessarily in the way that many think. Draisaitl is a risk, but history shows that he’s a reasonable one. Arcobello is a risk, but his work at all levels in 2013-14 makes him a pretty reasonable bet, too. Where Edmonton is really exposed is at the top end of the roster, where Nugent-Hopkins is being asked to be the legitimate No. 1 centre he has yet to become. The Oilers also lack depth options; if any of Nugent-Hopkins, Draisaitl or Arcobello get hurt or under-perform the team is suddenly leaning hard on one-assist Lander.
It’s a decent time to gamble for two reasons, though: Because the Oilers really like the players they’re rolling the dice on and there is a lack of appealing alternatives.
Additionally, the hubbub over centre has obscured the other question marks on the roster. The defence is going to lean heavily on No. 1 blueliner Justin Schultz; like Nugent-Hopkins, a young and promising player who has yet to show he can handle the responsibility. Top prospects like Martin Marincin, Darnell Nurse and Oscar Klefbom are on the way but aren’t likely to solidify the group right now. Meanwhile, the top two goalies in the organization have barely 100 NHL games between them.
Edmonton hasn’t yet emerged from its rebuild. GM Craig MacTavish has been among the league’s most active executives in his year and a bit at the helm, and things are slowly starting to improve, but a lot still needs to come together. He’s been handed lemons at all positions and he’s doing his best to make lemonade, but he needs a few breaks. Centre ice happens to be the most obvious gamble but it’s far from the only one.